


Tulip Bruises

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ache in Bolin's chest that won't go away; the flowers on the table in their room; the way Mako shouldn't feel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tulip Bruises

When the flames shoot past him to hit the wall with a low hiss, the earthbender doesn’t need to look or even open his eyes. The dull heat emanating from the space to his left leaves a tingling sensation on his skin; it’s all the information he needs to pinpoint the location of his opponent. But he still clicks his tongue, acts like he doesn’t know, gives himself away with noise. The second ball of fire comes head on--he can hear it, can feel the other bender’s steps through the earth like intricate dance moves before the flames ignite and bend into submission.

Before the flames can reach him, however, the boy finds himself moving into pattern like always, the stone shoving out of the earth and into a thin sheet of rock. It diffuses the flame into scattered extensions that fade to nothing before the slim wall of granite plummets to the ground and cracks into dozens of chunks.

For a while, there are no new attacks, leaving a buzzing silence in the earthbender’s ears that only grows with each passing second until the _stomp, step, push_ and then he’s sending a couple medium-sized boulders across the room to where he’s judged his opponent to be. But the rocks fall on empty ground, thudding against the pavement with multiple large smashing sounds. He pauses for a moment, thinking to himself. _Weird, he should have been the-_

The fire catches him by surprise this time, hissing just as it grazes his ankle. He manages to hop away, avoiding what he knows wouldn’t have been a serious injury anyway. But he still quietly yelps, checking his heel for damage. It was just the sudden heat that hurt him earlier, it seems--the boot is the only part of him that is damaged, and even that is only mild scorch marks.

Taking a deep breath, he focuses his eyes inwards, to the center of the room. Out there, his opponent lies in wait, slowly moving his feet in preparation. The boy can’t help but grin as he feels it through the echoing stone. _Now I’ve got him._

He waits a few seconds until the moment where he guesses the other bender is about to strike before lashing out, releasing minimal strength into an arm motion that _bend, hit, bend, hit, bend, hits_ a few boulders in his opponent’s direction. One of the small rocks obviously hits its mark as a short yelp reaches the boy’s ears.

Grinning, the earthbender rips off his blindfold. “You see that, Mako? Pretty sick, huh?” His opponent, a boy in greyish-brown with a red scarf, looks over his arm and winces a little before nodding.

“Uh… yeah, I saw it. Felt it, mostly. Good job.” As he says it, he gestures to the earthbender with a motion of his head. Creasing his eyebrows, the boy trots up and watches his brother roll up one sleeve to look over his bicep. Before he can ask if he’s alright, Mako rolls his sleeve back down. “It’s fine, nothing serious--maybe a small bruise.”

The other boy creases his eyebrows a little bit with worry and scratches the back of his neck nervously. “Sorry, I guess I-”

“Bolin, it’s _fine_.” The firebender slaps his brother’s back with a sigh, moving over to a table and picking up a glass of water. His head tilts back as he takes a few large gulps, revealing some sweat running down the back of his neck. After a few seconds, he sets it back on the table and presses the skin of his palm into the polished stone of the table. 

Biting his lip, Bolin turns away, looking down at his boot. The charring there is pretty obvious, but at least it didn’t burn his skin. When the other boy notices him picking at the burn pieces of material around the heel of the shoe, he frowns. “Wait, did I do that? Did I burn you?”

“No, it’s just the boot. No big deal,” Bolin answers, flashing a smile at his brother. Still frowning, Mako turns back to the table and grabs a new glass of water, handing it to the earthbender. 

Gratefully taking the glass, he chugs it all down and then grins at Mako. “Thanks. Ready to go at it again?”

The older brother finally lets the corners of his mouth tilt up. “You bet. I bet you’ll be even better this time.”

Hand on the woven green blindfold, Bolin slides it off the table and quickly ties it around his head. Mako’s rough hand touches his arm and then brushes away to his side of the room. When he walks, the earthbender can feel him inside the earth, the vibrations of his footsteps leaving imprints on Bolin’s mental state the way they always do. Even if he’s not as good as he would like at judging the movement of people around him through bending, he would recognize those footsteps _anywhere_.

So when the first spout of fire comes, he’s ready with a rock to block it. This is second nature; this is natural, the way it should be. Just darkness and focus and training, his brother somewhere on the other side of the room.

Bolin doesn’t like not being able to see. It freaks him out, makes him feel alone. That’s the hardest part. But like this, when he knows for sure he’s not alone because of his brother’s movements, it might be okay. Maybe. When Mako’s movements are so clear and familiar, it paints a picture of the room in the earthbender’s mind that makes him feel like maybe he _can_ see. 

So when they’re done training and Mako is running one through his hair, saying, “I’m beat, let’s get food somewhere,” it feels disappointing. Not devastatingly so, however, because getting food is a pretty big plus as well.

Once they’re in the hallway leading to the exit, Bolin lets out a large exhale that feels like more than just breath. Staring straight ahead and fiddling with his gloves, Mako doesn’t respond. It’s not surprising, really. But when the younger brother’s hand finds its way into the firebender’s, he doesn’t pull away. Corners of his mouth tilting slightly up with dimly lit irises, he rolls his eyes. 

Bolin just laughs, turns away and pulls his brother down the long hallway with a grin.

And, for a long time, that’s the way it is. Pro-bending matches, training, eating dinner out if they’ve got the funds (they usually don’t). Before matches Bolin brings girls into their room. Almost every match a new girl, a new face, a new hair style. He has a rule: If the Fire Ferrets win, he’ll kiss her. If not, well, she’s S.O.L. And maybe it annoys Mako a bit but not enough to make him push Bolin away when he kisses him on the cheek after they lose. That’s the second part of the rule.

Then again, he kisses him whether they win or lose.

 

Whenever Bolin brings a new girl into their prep room, Mako can feel veins of annoyance coursing through his body and lighting his blood aflame--or so he like to tell himself. No matter how many times he tells himself the way he feels is the profit of frustration that his brother isn’t totally focused on the game, it’s not true. It’s jealousy, thick like blood.

The way Mako feels is wrong, disgusting, taboo, probably. But it doesn’t change the fact that it _is_ how he feels. Not to say that he isn’t interested in girls--he is, absolutely. He even asks Bolin for his opinion on his outfits, not that he’ll ever necessarily change anything based on the verdict since he pretty much wears the same thing all the time. 

But this is different--the way Bolin looks at them, smiling, laughing, touching their hair like one would the petals of a delicate flower. Despite how wrong he knows he it is to feel that way, he kind of wishes Bolin would smile at him like that. Not his cheery, carefree smile, not the one he gives his brother to make him feel better when he’s down. The other one, the one that means something more than joy.

Ever since they were kids, he’s watched over Bolin, helped him, made sure he was okay. Even now, that hasn’t changed. They’re close, really close, maybe closer than they should be. _Definitely_ closer than they should be as siblings. But Bolin’s hand is warm and right and the hallway where they kiss after matches suddenly seems like a friendly place and the flowers Bolin left in a vase in his room are still there, wilting and important in their own right.

So he lets it continue and tries not to look when Bolin has his hand on a girl’s waist and a hand on her neck. His little brother doesn’t belong to him, and the soft fingers he runs down side of these girl’s faces don’t belong to him either, no matter how much they wishes that they might.

 

Bolin likes to leave flowers in Mako’s room when he’s down or upset. At first it’s just a once in a while occurrence, but over the time it becomes a regularity and he’s always running down to the park to discreetly take a rose here, a daisy there. It’s supposed to cheer him up and Bolin can’t really tell if it does, but the firebender never gets rid of them and that probably means they’re a good thing.

His older brother has a lot of bruises on him. From training, from matches, from fights in the street that Bolin is pretty sure he’s probably still having. It worries him sometimes, making him double take when Mako comes out of the shower with a towel around his waist and a purple-yellow spread on his shoulder like badly-mixed finger paints.

It’s late at night and shadows are fluttering at the edges of Bolin’s vision like dazed butterflies when he decides that he wants to kiss those bruises, make them better. It would, probably, if he put the heart into it. Maybe. _Cheesy? Yeah. Very_. But he decides he doesn’t really care.

So, with a deep breath, he turns to Mako in his own bed and pokes his shoulder. “Hey,” he whispers, with no answer. Exhaling, he tries again. “Hey, Mako.” The other boy stirs and turns over with squinting eyes.

“Bolin, it’s late. Wh… what’ya need?”

Blushing a little, Bolin slides closer and pokes his brother’s forearm where he saw a bruise that morning. Mako winces and covers the spot with his free hand as the earthbender speaks quietly. “Give me your arm.”

“Uh, what? Why?”

Rolling his eyes, the boy grabs his older brother’s arm by force and rolls up the sleeve of his sleeping shirt. The bruise looks worse now, long and wide and violet like dying lilacs in the garden. There are shades of yellow, too, closed tulips in autumn. And then his lips are gently touching the skin before Mako can turn away, making soft, invisible marks on tender flesh that he thinks might somehow have healing powers. They don’t, of course, but he can believe and maybe the belief will make it true in a regard.

Mako doesn’t pull away, instead letting the earthbender shuffle closer and leave non-existent marks of affection up to his elbow and then back down to the base of his forearm and the space right before his hand where the skin wrinkles and folds at a joint.

“Bolin, you…” He trails off, looking over at his brother with what can only be called vague remorse in his eyes. Smiling up at him, the other boy rolls down the sleeve. 

“Don’t get hurt so much, ‘kay? Be more careful.”

Mako shifts a little bit and presses his lips together into a thin line. “I am,” he mutters, fingers intertwining with Bolin’s. “I try.”

Letting go of his brother’s hand, the earthbender frowns and twitches his eye slightly in the darkness. “Do more than try.”

The other boy doesn’t answer, closing his eyes with a sigh of air through his nose and bringing his arms close to his chest. But he doesn’t turn away, not yet. It’s enough to tell Bolin that he _will_ try. Satisfied, he slumps back towards his own bed only to be pulled down by the firm grip of his brother.

They don’t speak. It’s not necessary, not with Mako’s lips finding their way to Bolin’s forehead and an ache in both of their chests that feels right and wrong at the same time, not with hands somehow intertwined across the space of a few inches on a small mattress that, apparently, can hold more than one person if necessary. 

So they fall asleep--Bolin first, Mako second. And in the morning, when light is streaming through the windows and onto the earthbender’s outstretched forearm and he wakes up alone, it’s not that much of a surprise.

That’s the day that he finds her. It’s not long before the match starts and Bolin’s left his water bottle in the training room, so he makes a quick trip to get it. But when he gets there, the water bottle is forgotten and the dark-haired boy finds himself defending a teenage girl caught trespassing. She’s pretty, really pretty, but it’s his good nature that makes him help her more than anything else.

Her hair reminds him of hazelnuts, or hot chocolate, or maybe a cool breeze passing through the trees in autumn. His first urge is to touch it, an urge that he somehow avoids. _For now_. 

To this day, her hair still seems like something out of a dream in the fall, tossed with the snow and cut short; a memory of summer.

And at first it’s nice, it’s different. Mako doesn’t like her for a while, biting his lip whenever she’s around. But she’s perfect, she’s kind and confident and strong and _she’s the Avatar_ and maybe it’s naive but Bolin thinks he might actually have a chance. He’s hesitant, of course. Especially when Mako is kissing him goodnight on the forehead and on the cheek and maybe on the lips sometimes, maybe. They’re both sentimental idiots, he thinks. They’re both lost in it.

When his brother comes home with raving words of praise for a girl with dark hair and lips like Dark Hudson Cherries, it hurts. Just a little, not a lot, but it’s an aching pang that stays and despite the fact that no, we’d never really work, probably, he can’t help but feel upset.

So he decides that Korra’s hot-chocolate looking locks are just as good as Mako’s deep chestnut brown ones even though they’re not, really, not at all. And he prepares, he thinks about it, he tells his brother he’s thinking about it and then he’s telling her with the most confident tone he can muster, “So, Korra, I was thinking, you and me, we could get some dinner together, sort of a date situation.” 

And they do go on a date and it’s nice and it’s perfect and the moon is shading the sky just slightly when they look over the city. For a while, Bolin even finds himself forgetting Asami’s arm’s on Mako’s chest or slung over his shoulders, her lips touching ground on his cheek just like the firebender’s did on his own cheek that morning.

Of course, it doesn’t last. They win the match despite Korra and Mako’s odd attitude and it seems like things are great and fine and dandy but they _aren’t_. He’s got flowers, yes, but they mean nothing with Korra in front of him and her lips touching his brother’s and the night air ruffling his hair like it’s trying to tell him, _you didn’t matter, anyway_. It sticks what feels like concrete in his lungs, weighing him down.

And when Mako notices and shouts “Bolin, this isn't what you think!” He knows that both of them know that it’s _exactly_ what he thinks and Korra is the only one who doesn’t know because it’s not just Korra who betrayed him and it’s _never_ been just Korra and it never _will_ be just Korra. 

Later, Mako finds him lying on the table of a restaurant and pondering his own irrelevance. The soup bowls he consumed aren’t helping, staring back at him with leftover sauce shaped like judging eyes. And he’s being immature, really, but when he calls the firebender, “not my brother, a brother betrayer,” it feels like he deserves it.

 

Mako tries everything he can think of. He reprimands his brother, hauls him back to the arena, gives him a glass of water, tries to talk sense into him. But it won’t work, and when Korra enters with a bitter expression directed at Mako and a pained look at his brother, the firebender knows they’re not going to win.

But, more than anything, he’s worried about his brother. He knows he messed up, despite blaming Korra. He won’t forgive her but he won’t forgive himself, either--after all, he knows the real depth of why Bolin feels the way that he does. When they’re out in the arena and the earthbender is throwing up onto the stone with a sickened expression that Mako wishes he couldn’t read as total despair, he’s wishing he had had time to do something more, even if it would be pointless. Maybe a kiss could have helped, but probably not. There’s still the conflict with Korra, still the ache in his chest that he feels when thinking about her and Asami as well and even Bolin, _especially_ Bolin.

The ache only gets worse as he watches his brother’s shoulder get pelted with rock before the boy with the scarf is knocked off of the edge. 

When Bolin joins him off of the edge, the firebender finds the strength to smile at him and help him up even with the inevitability of failure and a tightness in his chest that is probably in his brother’s too. “Are you okay? How's your shoulder?” He walks with his brother to the elevator as he says it, knowing full-well that the bruise left by the other team’s earthbender will bloom in shades of purple of yellow and even brown like an exotic flower. And maybe Mako will kiss it, just maybe, even though that’s Bolin’s thing, really, and he’s not that sentimental.

“Ahh, it's messed up pretty bad, but I think I'll be alright,” the earthbender replies with a tiny smile that falls as soon as it appears. “Are _we_ gonna be alright?”

His words sting in Mako’s chest, but he knows it’s a valid question. It’s his fault, anyway, that the veins of jealousy they both didn’t realize went this deep resurfaced at exactly the wrong place and time. Looking down at his feet and then back up, he dares to grab Bolin’s hand and squeeze it, feeling sweat on both of their palms. “Of course we are. We're brothers.”

When the earthbender quietly mutters, “ _unfortunately_ ,” under his breath, he can’t help but laugh a little. 

It’s a surprise and a relief with Korra wins, but it’s not the biggest relief of the night, not by a long shot. And he apologizes to them both, of course, because in the end the boy with the scarf knows that he’s been the biggest jerk on the block. But the apology that counts, that stays, the one that really matters is the one uttered through barely-parted lips against the skin of Bolin’s shoulder late that night when the hype has faded and the shadows lingering in the room aren’t so threatening.

“You know Korra healed that, right?”

“Shut up, idiot. I’m trying to help.”

And even though Bolin laughs and calls him an over-protective older brother, it does help. It really does, more than Korra’s apology or Mako’s in the elevator or winning the match. In the dark, the shadows, with the kisses they can never tell anyone about, the earthbender decides that his brother was telling the truth. They’ll be alright.

The next day, Mako wakes up to an empty bed and an empty room. On the desk there is a vase filled with freshly-picked white tulips, gleaming the color of fresh snow in the mid-morning light.

**Author's Note:**

> A white tulip symbolizes forgiveness.


End file.
